Maile Chapman, a Las Vegas-based author and professor of English at UNLV, recently published “The Spoil,” first novel in 15 years, following “Your Presence Is Requested at Suvanto,” released in 2011.
Her new novel, a psychological horror, takes place in Tacoma, Washington, and Las Vegas. “The Spoil” was released in March.
Neon: What inspired you to write “The Spoil”?
Maile Chapman: I started writing this novel when I was away for a year, because I missed Las Vegas. I was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, doing research for a novel that was set elsewhere, but nostalgia for Vegas kept pulling my attention, and that nostalgia kept gaining momentum, and that’s how it started. Later, some other parts began to draw from personal and family experiences, even though it’s a work of fiction.
Can you tell us about your personal connection to Nevada?
I came to work on a Ph.D. in English literature with a creative dissertation, and then stayed 20 years. I moved here for a Schaeffer Ph.D. Fellowship through the English department and the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV, probably the best financial package for a creative writing graduate student in the country at the time. Back then, the Black Mountain Institute was newly created, the crash of 2008 hadn’t happened yet, the city seemed full of limitless possibilities, and I really fell in love with Las Vegas.
What do you hope readers take away from “The Spoil”?
Probably that grief and bereavement don’t follow a straightforward timeline, and that caretaking at the end of a loved one’s life is profoundly life-changing for those who remain behind afterwards. It’s like stumbling through another dimension hidden within everyday reality: Time passes differently, relationships change, priorities crystallize, and then, at the end, the person you love is gone. Caregiving followed by bereavement can be hard to come back from, and I’ve heard from some readers that this part of the book resonated for them, because of their own experiences. I’m glad, if that’s the case.
What is the most surprising thing you learned about yourself, the book or the writing process while writing this?
I was surprised to learn how complicated nostalgia is and that what I’m actually nostalgic for isn’t the reality of the 1970s, it’s the sense of the unknown future I expected back then, which was different from the present we’re living in now. I can’t and don’t want to unlearn what I didn’t know back then about serious social and political problems when I was a kid, but I do miss the sense of living in a different world, with a different potential future. In a similar way, I’m so grateful for the time spent with my mother here, in Las Vegas, even though she wasn’t well. I obviously don’t miss the actual reality of what she endured. But I miss her, and I miss not knowing all the details of what she would have to endure after that time.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on another novel that takes place in the 1970s, in the Southwest and California, among some of the life-extension and longevity seekers who came before all the current trends in rejuvenation and health optimization that we see now on social media. These include esoteric practices, like alchemy and the search for a universal cure for aging, as well as scientific approaches that seemed so futuristic in the past, like cryogenics.